Uncovering the house so the plaster can breathe.

Prosopon: The Greek word for the human face refers to the sight one presents to the other's gaze.



Can we even fathom what it feels like to be born shaped like a nightmare creature
No real relationships with anything other than the terror of arriving, new
of being considered hideous, no one willing to touch you, to teach you kindness
not knowing the word revulsion doesn't mean you can't understand it when you see it
in the faces of others

We only see the Minotaur depicted in his full blown sexual maturity
as he prowls the cage he lives in yet may be too terrified to ever leave
never having experienced anything else
we assume he demanded virgins, like he understood something about them
in relationship to himself

Does he consider himself to be a monster? Was he not also an innocent?
Does he consume the fluttering hearts of the other innocents sealed in the maze
to arrest what he feels when they gaze upon him, eating his own reflection in the mirror
of these girls that smell of sunlight, the sky still in their eyes
maybe he is terrified by the vastness they belong to - a big fierce world he has never known

They probably have no idea the power they wield with their eyes
as the warmth of the sun leaves them, their bodies going cold with fear and disgust
they possess the ability to make him feel as small as he did that moment
when his awareness crystallized like the masonry of his father’s architect closing in around him
laying the bedrock of his feral coping mechanisms

Labyrinthine patterns carved so deep that he can't possible discern the difference between
catching a glint of sunlight piercing the darkness to land on his skin, warm as touch
and the pheromonal heat coming off of these young women that tugs at a part of himself
that has never been touched
yawning into a wordless hunger and enveloping sadness, twin flames devouring him

The crushing similarity between the sounds
of the unseen, voiceless child calling for contact from deep within his emotional recesses
and the piercing screams of these barefoot waifs when they stumble upon him
bearing witness to what happens when we have an overbearing will to survive
but no guides

A byproduct of jealousy and greed between Gods and Kings
Adults who give no thought to how their actions may make monsters of men
who were children once, yearning for touch, comfort in their explorations
who shouldn't have had to warm themselves at the fire of fight or flight
eat or be eaten

Of course, that's what water does.

I.
everything is changing
like, more than usual
I used to prefer it that way
I knew myself in chaos,
because I was a wall
rooted to myself in such a way
that I always knew up from down

but I gave that job away
cause I had other things I wanted to be
and it was getting in my way

I know myself
what I'm worth
what I believe
better than I did
this time last year
maybe up and down
are relative

I realize
this is probably
why people have mothers

in a class last week
I was asked to orient to the ground
as I rolled from my side to my belly
I was so focused on being
a conduit for forces
the idea of holding an intention of movement
at the same time seemed mysterious, foreign,
a revelation

this is how we are meant
to move through life I realized
how exhaustingly huge.


II.
in the shower it struck me, as I recounted my day
that I seem to collect Taurus employers, Captains of Industry
and as bizarrely secretive and possessive as my mother

also a Taurus

forceful, emotionally demanding, tricky with the information they share
molding the people and world around them into a landscape of their liking

to their advantage

also unwilling to ask for a certain kind of help, a safe space to expose
their weaknesses unless it is a ploy, to help protect them in the long run
Scorpio is the Sorcerer, a mover of people and matter

I am an ideal helpmeet

Just like Ariadne, keeper of the keys to the labyrinth
which leads to the bull at its center, waiting for human sacrifices
given as tribute from the surrounding villages

I finally understand who the Minotaur is

who do I give my gift to
this thread to find their way back from my depths
after killing the monster the haunts me?


III.
once, in the throes of puberty
my self disgust manifested
as physical punishment and I knew
I needed something so I stood in front of my mother
paralyzed, voiceless
she put her arms around me and I was stone
in that embrace but before any part of me
had time to melt she pulled away
yelling at me because of some weird insecurity
maybe she felt rejected
I just needed her to hold on long enough that
I could turn from stone to flesh again

I think it was around that time that
I started to shut down
my stepfather's eyes and words were so often on my body
like it was a thing that didn't really belong to me
and I was starting to understand that my mother
wasn't going to protect me from what comes next
he was institutionalized before it got that far
but the next decade or so was a blur
of out of body sexual experiences

A weird disturbance arose today, low in my pelvic bowl
a whisper of what might be considered a period cramp
something I've never dealt with in my entire bloody life
I usually get migraines instead, blinding, nauseous, debilitating
every 28 days or so

sitting on the subway, mulling over this little, pulsing, precursor to pain
I thought about my recent fling with a handsome foreigner
a stunning project we all worked on together, and how utterly female
curvaceous and powerful I felt showing up to work alongside him
a part of myself that I've hidden for as long as I could remember
reveling in my own femininity, tasting another human being
with nothing but pleasure in mind for the first time in my life

were those migraines a manifestation of those things I cut off
since I first began to bud
blinding, nauseous, debilitating
what does this new pulsing sharpness mean?